A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1

How little hope there was of redress for all this is visible in the contemptuous indifference with which Inquisitor-general Valdés answered the several articles. As to bandits and homicides being made familiars, he said the Inquisition had need of all kinds of officials for its various functions, and as to the specific complaints the stereotyped answer was that any one deeming himself aggrieved could appeal to the Suprema and get justice.[1103]

The Concordia of 1553 was applicable to Castile alone and that of 1554 to Valencia. Aragon remained without the slender alleviation provided for in the latter, for the adjustments of 1512 and 1521 were treated as non-existent. At the Córtes of 1563-4 the complaints were so vivacious that, as we have seen, Philip promised investigation which resulted in the Concordia of 1568. The formula for Aragon was virtually the same as the combined Valencia Concordias of 1554 and 1568, the evils with which the two kingdoms were afflicted being virtually the same. As usual, familiars were the class that excited the bitterest hostility. Their commissions were all to be called in and then sixty were to be appointed for Saragossa, while the other towns were assigned from eight to one or two according to population. Their character was to be closely scrutinized and all bandits, homicides, criminals, powerful nobles, frailes and clerics were to be excluded, and no one was to enjoy the fuero whose name was not on lists presented to the magistrates. They were to have, in criminal matters, the active and passive fuero but in civil suits only the passive; it was the same with servants of officials, while officials themselves had active and passive in both civil and criminal. The utmost caution and moderation was prescribed in the employment of inhibitions and excommunications of the royal judges, and the royal alguazils were not to be arrested save in cases of grave and notorious infraction of inquisitorial rights.[1104]

The Concordia did not bring concord. In 1571 there arose a bitter dispute between the tribunal and the court of the Justicia, in which excommunications were freely used and, in December, the Diputados appealed to Pius V to evoke the case and remove the censures, but he told them to go to the inquisitor-general. After the death of Pius, the kingdom insisted with Gregory XIII and, in December, 1572, obtained from him a brief committing the case to the Suprema or to Ponce de Leon the new inquisitor-general, but, at the same time, he ordered that some remedy be found to prevent the inquisitors from abusing the privileges conceded to them by the canons and the popes.[1105] The next year, 1573, formal complaints were made by the kingdom of infractions of the Concordia and, by 1585, aggravation had reached a point that the Córtes asked for a new concordia. Philip promised to send a person to Saragossa to gather information as to grievances alleged against certain inquisitors and officials, after which arrangements were made for the drafting and acceptance or rejection of a new agreement, but there is no trace of any resultant understanding.[1106] Quarrelling necessarily continued with little intermission. In 1613 the removal of the name of Juan Porquet, a familiar, from insaculacion, by the royal commissioner of Tamarit, gave rise to a great disturbance which was long remembered and, in 1619, there was a clash between the tribunal and the captain-general, which caused much scandal, resulting in the governor being summoned to Madrid, where he was kept for four years.[1107]

Thus it went on until, in 1626, the Córtes were again assembled. It was known that demands for relief would be made and the Suprema asked Philip to submit to it whatever articles were proposed, in reply to which he assured it that there should be no change to its prejudice, but that he would procure its increase of privilege.[1108] The chief business of the Córtes was the questions connected with the Inquisition. Philip was not present and his representative, the Count of Monterrey, did not feel empowered to grant the demands made. The only absolute action taken was to adopt as a fuero or law the Concordia of 1568, which hitherto had only the authority of the orders of the king and inquisitor-general. As regards reform, it was left to a commission, consisting on one side of royal appointees and on the other of four delegates named by each of the four brazos or estates. The commission framed a series of fourteen articles, by no means radical in their character, but Philip procrastinated in confirming or rejecting them; the Suprema, in 1627, appealed to Rome to withhold papal sanction and they were quietly allowed to drop, on the pretext that the Concordia of 1568, now erected into law, would suffice to prevent future grounds of complaint. How futile this was is apparent from a conflict which occurred during the sitting of the commission. The assessor of the governor, as was his duty, entered the house of the secretary of the tribunal, flagrante delicto, for a most treacherous murder attributed to him.

Although his obligation to do this was notorious, arrest of subordinates followed on both sides and the indignant people were with difficulty restrained from a tumult. The royal officials at once took steps to form a competencia, in conformity with the Concordia which had just been erected into a law; this required all proceedings to be suspended but the inquisitors excommunicated the assessor, refusing to join in the competencia because, as they asserted, the case was an evident one, thus assuming that they could set aside all law by merely declaring that a case was evident.[1109]

The Inquisition had never been restrained by the Concordia and now that it had again baffled the Córtes it was still less inclined to submit to restraint. Quarrels continued as virulent as before, a single example of which will illustrate its invincible tendency to extend its jurisdiction on all possible pretexts. Berenguer de San Vicente of Huesca, in 1534, had founded in that city the College of Santiago and when, in 1538, the municipality added an endowment of more than six thousand ducats, he made the magistrates its patrons. In 1542 he procured from Charles V a cédula, confirmed by the pope, making the inquisitors of Aragon visitors or inspectors of the college, during the royal pleasure and so long as they should perform their functions loyally and well. This supervisory function they stretched in course of time to bring the college and all its members under their jurisdiction, although in 1643 it was asserted that the last visitation had been made in 1624. This power they exercised in most arbitrary fashion. When an attempt was made to burn the college and the town offered a reward for the detection of the incendiary, they interposed with the threat of an interdict and frightened the citizens into submission. In 1643 a pasquinade against some of the inhabitants led to the prosecution of the rector of the college, Dr. Juan Lorenzo Salas, who promptly procured letters from the tribunal inhibiting further proceedings and demanding all the papers. The patience of Huesca was exhausted.

It declared its position to be intolerable, for the students appealed to the fuero in all disputes with the townsmen, and the result of the stimulus thus given to that turbulent element was driving away the population and every one lived in apprehension of some terrible event. To gain relief it applied to the Audiencia for a competencia but was told that this was impossible, whereupon it obtained from the court of the Justicia a firma prohibiting the inquisitors from acting; they refused to allow it to be served when it was put on the gate of the Aljaferia with notice that if answer was not made within thirty days it would be followed with exile and seizure of temporalities. The Suprema ordered the inquisitors to answer by excommunicating all concerned. Philip was then in Saragossa, on his way to Catalonia to put himself at the head of his army, for the disgrace of Olivares had forced him to govern as well as to reign, but he was compelled to distract his thoughts with these miserable squabbles. The Council of Aragon appealed to him to require the inquisitors to show cause why they should not be deprived of the visitation and to impose silence on all until he should reach a decision; the Audiencia rendered an opinion that the court of the Justicia could not refuse to issue the firma and, if the complainant insisted on its service, it must be served if the whole power of the kingdom had to be called upon.

On the other hand the Suprema declared that the service of the firma was unexampled and urged the king to support the Inquisition in a matter on which depended the ruin or the preservation of the monarchy, for it would be better to close the Holy Office than to expose its jurisdiction to such disgrace, while in these calamitous times favor shown to the Inquisition would placate God and insure the success of his arms. Philip’s reply was long and maundering, irresolute between his reverence for the Inquisition and his fear of alienating in his extremity the Aragonese by violating their most cherished privileges. If Huesca would desist from the service of the firma he would order the tribunal to form a competencia. Huesca, however, was intractable; its very existence, it asserted, was at stake and it begged the king not to interfere with the legal remedies to which it had been forced and, in conveying this reply to the king, the Council of Aragon warned him that it could not prevent Huesca from serving the firma, as this would be a notorious violation of the law on the point regarded by the kingdom as most essential. Yet, after all, the question was evaded by the device of appointing as visitor of the college the inquisitor Juan Llano de Valdés, who succeeded in reaching an agreement with the city. It would seem that thereafter special visitors were nominated for, in 1665, we hear of such an appointment issued to Inquisitor Carlos del Hoya and it may be doubted whether Huesca gained much.[1110]

These disturbances mark the highest point reached by the Inquisition in Aragon as regards its temporal jurisdiction. How little cause of complaint it really had, and how Aragon, in spite of its sturdy independence, had endured greater abuses than those permitted in Castile, is evinced in a suggestion made by the Suprema, February 11, 1643, in response to a demand from the king to devise some new source of raising money for the bankrupt treasury. This was that if he would grant to the familiars of Castile the same privileges of active and passive fuero enjoyed by those of Aragon, they would cheerfully contribute to a considerable assessment, with the added advantage of diminishing the competencias which caused so much trouble and loss of time.[1111] Such a proposal affords the measure of the wrongs inflicted on society by those who profited by their exemption from the secular courts, for even the more limited privileges of the Castilian familiars rendered the position one to be eagerly sought, in spite of the considerable cost of proving the condition precedent of limpieza, or purity of blood. These evils were vastly aggravated by the fact, as we shall see hereafter, that the tribunals never regarded the limitation on numbers prescribed by the Concordias, but filled the land with these privileged persons who, for the most part, turned to the best account the protection of the Holy Office.

That Aragon should be permanently restive under this adverse discrimination was inevitable and the time had come when it could dictate in place of supplicating. Since the Córtes of 1626 twenty years elapsed before Philip found himself constrained to assemble them again. The situation was desperate; the Catalan rebellion bade fair to end in the permanent alienation of the Principality to France, and it was not wise to impose too severe a strain on the loyalty of Aragon, when the Córtes met September 20, 1645, for a session of fifteen months. In preparation for the struggle, the Suprema presented to the king, September 30th, an elaborately argued memorial in which it told him that the calamities of the war should lead him to greater zeal in fortifying the Inquisition with new graces and privileges, so as to win the favor of God, whose cause they served and from whom alone was relief to be expected. It was therefore asked that whatever demands on the subject should be presented should be reserved for discussion with the inquisitor-general and Suprema.[1112] Philip doubtless made the desired promise, but the Aragonese had too often found their hopes frustrated in this manner to submit to it again under existing circumstances.

The Córtes lost no time in presenting their petition on the subject, which asked for radical reform in all the Aragonese kingdoms. The jurisdiction of the Inquisition was to be confined to cases of faith and to civil and criminal actions between its officials. In certain mixed cases, such as bigamy, unnatural crime, sorcery, solicitation and censorship it should have jurisdiction cumulative with the appropriate secular and spiritual courts. A number of minor points were added, including a demand that all inquisitors and officials should be natives and it was significantly stated that the petition was presented thus early in order that it might be granted, so that the Córtes could proceed more heartily with the servicio that was asked for. This paper was submitted to the Suprema which replied in a long consulta, March 31, 1646, arguing that the Inquisition had been introduced into Aragon without law and was independent of all law. It proceeded to demonstrate, as we have seen (p. 345), that its temporal jurisdiction was inalienable and that the Concordias were compacts which could not be modified without its consent. The officials were so abhorred that it would be impossible for them to perform their duties if they were not thus protected. If the Córtes should stubbornly insist, the king was urged, like Charles V in 1518, to remember his soul and his conscience, and to prefer the loss of part of his dominions rather than consent to anything contrary to the honor of God and the authority of the Inquisition.[1113]

The policy of the Suprema was to carry the war into Africa, and it followed this manifesto with another demanding that the court of the Justicia should be prohibited from issuing firmas and manifestaciones in cases concerning the Inquisition. Both sides asked for more than they expected to get and, when the Córtes answered these papers, June 20th, after numerous citations to disprove the arguments of the Suprema and an exposition of the hardships caused by the existing system, they opened the way to a compromise by pointing out that Castile for nearly a hundred years had enjoyed what Aragon had vainly prayed for, and concluded by suggesting that the best settlement would be to confer on Aragon the Concordia of Castile which had been thoroughly discussed by lawyers and its practical working determined and understood.[1114]

Finally the demands of the Córtes were formulated in a series of twenty-seven articles, which were prudently declared to be law, whether confirmed or not by the inquisitor-general. Of these the essential ones deprived familiars of the active and passive fuero in civil suits, of the active in criminal cases, and excepted certain specified crimes in the passive. Servants of salaried officials were put on the same footing in criminal matters. The number of both familiars and salaried officials was limited to four hundred and fifty in the whole kingdom and those who held office were deprived of the fuero for official malfeasance; in cases not of faith the use of torture was prohibited as well as confinement in the secret prison; all cases, whether civil or criminal, were to be concluded within two years; fraudulent alienation of property to officials, so as to place it under the fuero, was declared invalid; all persons or bodies, in case of violation of these provisions, had the right to avail themselves of all remedies known to the laws of the land, while to the tribunal was reserved the power to employ censures and other legal processes. A concession was made by granting to both officials and familiars the right of asylum in their houses, relief from billeting, exemption from arrest for debt, capacity to hold office and freedom from tolls, ferriages, etc.

In return for this the Córtes were liberal with the servicio, agreeing to keep in the field two thousand foot and five hundred horse for four years, paying them two reales a day, while the king should find them in food, arms and horses.[1115]

In these conditions there was nothing affecting the faith or restricting the persecution of heresy; nothing save a prudent regard for the peace and protection of society from the intolerable burden of gangs of virtual bandits clothed in inviolability. Yet Philip resisted to the last extremity these reasonable concessions, which merely placed Aragon on the same footing as Castile. We are told that he declared that he cherished the Inquisition as the apple of his eye and that he exhausted every means to preserve its privileges. He offered to concede everything else that was asked; he endeavored to win the Aragonese by bribing them with royal grants and graces, of which three hundred and sixty were published in a single day, with the names of the recipients, but nothing could overcome the hatred felt for the Holy Office and the brazos were immovable. In his perplexity he appealed to his usual counsellor, the mystic Sor María de Agreda, affirming his determination to uphold the Inquisition, and he must have been surprised when that clear-sighted woman advised him to compromise, for a quarrel with Aragon might turn it to the side of Catalonia and lead to the permanent disruption of the monarchy. Even this failed to move him. He endeavored to depart for Madrid, but deputation after deputation was sent to the convent of Santa Engracia where he was lodged, insisting on his confirmation of the articles and detaining him for two or three days while his coach stood ready at the gate, until at last he yielded, seeing that there was no alternative.

The writer who records this adds that the people rejoiced and since then in Aragon, where the Inquisition had stood higher than elsewhere, for an inquisitor was regarded with more reverence than an archbishop or a viceroy, it has so fallen in estimation that some say that all is over with it. The officials and familiars feel this every day in the withdrawal of their privileges and exemptions, and it is palpable that in all that does not concern the faith, the ancient powers of the tribunal of Aragon are prostrated.[1116]

It was not long before the sullen yielding of the Inquisition to the changed situation was manifested in a case which did not tend to restore it to reverence. Inquisitor Lazaeta was involved in an intrigue with a married woman of San Anton, whose husband, a Catalan named Miguel Choved, grew suspicious and pretended to take a journey. Lazaeta fell into the trap. October 27, 1647, he went to the house at nightfall, leaving his coach in hiding behind the shambles; the coachman waited for him in vain, for the injured husband had entered by a side-door and given him a sword-thrust of which he died in the street, while stumbling forward in search of his coach. The woman escaped and Choved disappeared, but some demonstration was necessary and the tribunal arrested one Francisco Arnal as an accessory. The court of the Justicia issued a manifestacion in his favor, when the inquisitors complained of the interference with their functions of such orders and that the tribunal could not be maintained if they were to be banished and their temporalities be seized whenever they judged that a case was not comprehended within the fueros. To this the Council of Aragon replied that the court of the Justicia always acted with great caution and that, in the present case, Arnal had renounced the manifestacion and had been returned to the tribunal, which had found him innocent and had discharged him.

The Suprema insisted that it would be better to remove the tribunal from Aragon than to have it subjected to such insults, to which the Council rejoined that there was no admission of firmas and manifestaciones except in matters not of faith; if the inquisitors would keep within their just limits, such troubles would be avoided, while, if they exceeded them, the kingdom must avail itself of the remedies provided by the laws.[1117] Now in this case the tribunal was strictly within its rights under the Concordia and its abstention from excommunication and interdict indicates how thoroughly it was humbled.

Another grievance of the Inquisition shows how completely the tables were turned. September 23, 1648, the Suprema represented in a consulta that the tribunal had been notified to reduce the number of its officials and familiars to the prescribed four hundred and fifty, which had not been done under the plea that the number was insufficient, that the Concordia did not order the dismissal of the overplus and that the incumbents could not be deprived of their rights. Still there was little doubt that persistent refusal would lead the Diputados to obtain a firma compelling a selection and until this was done no familiar would be allowed to enjoy their privileges—in fact a number of towns had already assumed this position and others were taking steps to obtain firmas. The Suprema endeavored to show the illegality of this on the ground that the Concordia of 1646 was not valid in the absence of confirmation by the inquisitor-general. Philip submitted this to the Council of Aragon and merely transmitted its answer, in non-committal fashion, to the Suprema for its information. This took the ground that only the secular and royal jurisdiction was concerned; the king had confirmed the laws which provided that the acquiescence of the inquisitor-general was unnecessary; if parties were aggrieved they could apply to the court of the Justicia.[1118]

Under these conditions, the laws of 1646, by restricting the tribunal to its proper functions, were a severe blow to its predominance, diminishing the terror which it inspired and affecting in some degree its finances. The continual suits brought before it had afforded a rich harvest of fees for its officials and the fines imposed had been a resource to its treasury. All this fell off greatly and, in 1649, the Suprema reminded Philip that, in 1646, it had predicted this result and he had promised indemnification by a fixed income to be paid by Aragon or by the royal treasury; although it did not regard the laws as binding in the absence of confirmation by the inquisitor-general, and had resisted their execution in every way, still they were executed and the officials were suffering keenly from their diminished fees, wherefore it asked the king to grant to the four notaries and messengers eight hundred ducats a year out of the fund for the Catalan refugees. This demand, and the impudent assertion of the nullity of the laws which he had approved, provoked Philip into one of his rare assertions of kingship. The Catalan fund, he replied, could not be touched; he would listen to other suggestions for the relief of the incumbents but not of their successors; he was master of the secular jurisdiction granted to the Inquisition for his service and could make laws and abrogate them at his pleasure.[1119]

Philip had learned a lesson and the laws of 1646 were duly executed. When, in 1677, there was another convocation of the Córtes of Aragon, the Suprema, in a suppliant tone contrasting strongly with its former arrogance, begged Carlos II to influence them to condescend to a modification. It gave a most dolorous account of the condition of the Saragossa tribunal resulting from that legislation. It forebore to discuss whether the officials had given just cause of complaint, but the total destruction of the Inquisition was curing one malady by introducing a worse one, and the Inquisition of Aragon had been destroyed. The number of officials was reduced below that at the time of its foundation, and its poverty was so great that wages were unpaid and the tribunal would probably have to be abandoned. The treasurer was compelled to collect its income and debts through the court of the Justicia, where it was impossible for him to carry on so many suits, so that only those paid whose consciences compelled them. The reduction of the officials impeded its usefulness; possibly there were fewer culprits but certainly there were fewer convictions—less in Aragon than in the other provinces—and a single one who escaped correction was a matter of greater consequence to God than the enjoyment of the fuero by five hundred persons.

It was impossible to fill the allotted number of familiars, for the fuero in criminal matters left to them was rather a disadvantage, for they died in prison owing to the interminable delays in settling the numerous competencias, while other defendants were released on bail. At the same time the deprivation of the active fuero exposed them to the effects of the general hatred felt for them. It was inconceivable that, in so pious a nation, this hatred could be caused by their functions, but its existence was a matter of experience and, in the absence of protection, the risks to which it exposed them prevented men from seeking the position. The Inquisition did not desire jurisdiction, but it could not exist without revenue and officials, and it therefore prayed the king that proper measures of relief be discussed in the Córtes, or a junta could be formed from both parties and a new Concordia be framed. Even allowing for customary exaggeration, this paper shows how greatly the Inquisition had outgrown the functions for which it had been imposed upon the people.

The concessions asked for were singularly moderate—that the treasurer should not be required to make collections through the court of the Justicia, that more familiars be allowed—though it had just been said that they could not be had—that they be admitted to bail during competencias, and a timid suggestion respecting the firma and manifestacion. The time, however, was not propitious even for demands so modest. The youthful Carlos II had just relegated his mother to a convent and her favorite Valenzuela to the Philippines; all power was in the hands of Don Juan of Austria, who held the inquisitor-general Valladares to be his personal enemy. The appeal of the Suprema was received unsympathetically and it seems to have gained nothing. That the Aragonese were content with the situation appears from the fact that the only complaint made by the Córtes regarded the non-observance of a law of 1646 prescribing the number of natives to be employed by the tribunal, and this arose merely from greed of office, for they suggested that, for each foreigner appointed in Aragon, an Aragonese should have a corresponding berth in a tribunal elsewhere.[1120]

The legislation of 1646 remained a finality. As late as 1741 the Suprema remonstrated against the Audiencia of Saragossa for impeding the jurisdiction of the tribunal by employing the firma, which, with customary disingenuousness, it characterized as an innovation.[1121]

Catalonia was as intractable as Aragon, while its more pronounced spirit of independence rendered it particularly troublesome. Although it lacked the institution of the Justicia, it had a somewhat imperfect substitute in the Banch Reyal, or King’s Bench, which was used in the appeals por via de fuerza from the spiritual courts. The Audiencia summoned the ecclesiastical judge before it and his disregard of the summons was followed by a decree of banishment and seizure of temporalities. The inquisitors denied their liability to this, the Catalans asserted it, and the endeavor to enforce it was a serious cause of quarrel. It was not without influence, for a memorial, in 1632, from the inquisitors complains that the Duke of Maqueda, when viceroy in 1592, had employed it against the tribunal, since when the veneration felt for the latter had greatly declined, and a complaint of the Catalan authorities to Carlos II, in 1695, describes it as the sole refuge and protection of the people from the oppression of the inquisitors and ecclesiastical judges.[1122]

We have already seen the Concordia reached in 1512, abolishing most of the then existing abuses; how it was sworn to by king, inquisitor-general and inquisitors, and how a similar oath was to be taken by all future inquisitors; how Leo X obligingly released them all from their oaths; how Ferdinand, just before his death, accepted the conditions, in December, 1515, and the complaisant pontiff, in the bull Pastoralis officii, confirmed them, and how Barcelona, in return, bound itself to a yearly subvention of six hundred ducats. It is well to recall these facts in view of the bare-faced denials with which subsequently the Catalan complaints of non-observance were persistently met. Even while the papal dispensation from the oaths was still in force, the Instructions issued by Inquisitor-general Mercader, in 1514, prescribed rules which, if observed, would have removed the leading causes of complaint. Any official or familiar committing a crime deserving of corporal punishment was to be denounced to him, when he would dismiss the culprit and punish the inquisitor who tolerated it. The civil suits of officials were to be brought in the court of the defendant; if the official was plaintiff, all proceedings before an inquisitor were pronounced invalid and both official and inquisitor were to be punished; even when both parties to a contract agreed to accept the forum of the tribunal, inquisitors were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to entertain the case. Secular officials could arrest familiars caught in the act.

Officials were forbidden to engage in trade, even through third parties, and were deprived of the fuero for all matters thence arising, and similarly if they purchased claims subject to suits, nor could they employ other officials to collect debts connected with their private estates.[1123] Although these Instructions were in force for only a year or two, they have interest as manifesting Ferdinand’s purpose that the Holy Office should not be distracted from its legitimate functions or be used to oppress his subjects or to minister to private greed. He could, at the same time, believe that it required special privileges, for it did not as yet inspire awe in so turbulent a population. In that same year, 1514, at Lérida, the inquisitor Canon Antist was besieged in his house and the assailants were with difficulty beaten off, after which they defiantly walked the streets, uttering challenges to his defenders.[1124]

A further victory was gained by the Catalans at the Córtes of Monzon in 1520, when, on December 28th, Cardinal Adrian, in the most solemn manner, not only swore to observe the articles of 1512 but presented for attestation a document from Queen Juana and Charles V, promising investigation and redress of charges brought against certain officials, and enacting that, to prevent such abuses for the future, all offences disconnected with the faith, committed by officials, should be tried by the ordinary courts, thus depriving them of the much-prized criminal passive fuero. This, too, Adrian swore to observe when the necessary papal confirmation should be obtained—a confirmation which the Inquisition probably had sufficient influence to prevent, as there appears to be no further trace of it.[1125]

The articles of 1512 thus were a compact in which the Catalans, the king, the Inquisition and the pope all joined in the most solemn manner, pledging all future inquisitors to swear to them. For a while this latter clause was observed. Fernando Loazes, who was inquisitor of Barcelona for twenty years from about 1533, took the oath, but he was promptly involved in a quarrel with the magistrates in which Juan de Cardona, Bishop-elect of Barcelona, was induced, as papal commissioner, to prosecute him for perjury, and after that no inquisitor took the oath.[1126] In this they were wise for they emancipated themselves completely from the Concordia. The Córtes of 1547 complained of the inordinate multiplication of familiars, over the thirty allowed by it, and of the neglect to furnish lists or other means for their identification, together with other infractions, but Prince Philip replied that he would consult the Suprema and would reach appropriate conclusions, which of course ended the matter.[1127] How completely the provisions of the Concordia were ignored is manifest in 1551, when Catalina Murciana asked relief in the veguer’s court from suits brought against her in the Inquisition by the fiscal, the Abbot of Besalú, when she was entitled to her own court. On refusal of redress by the inquisitor, Juan Arias, a monitorio was obtained from the Banch Reyal, whereupon Arias threw the officials of the veguer’s court into prison and kept them there.

The matter was carried up to the Royal Councils with the result that the judges of the Audiencia were ordered to erase all record of the affair from their dockets and appear in person before the inquisitor to report to him that it was duly expunged.[1128]

Thus supported by the monarch, the tribunal exercised its powers at discretion without regard to compacts. The report, in 1561, by Inquisitor Gaspar Cervantes of the visitation which he had just completed, describes the disorders which had long reigned in all departments. The last visitation had been made in 1550 and its recommendations had been wholly ignored. It had ordered a reduction in the number of familiars and that lists of them be sent to the Suprema, which had not been done; in fact the tribunal itself had kept no correct register; it had a hundred and eight names recorded for Barcelona, but when they were ordered to present their papers under penalty of being dropped, only sixty-eight of these came forward, while there were thirty-one who were not registered. The number, he said, should be reduced and more care be exercised in the selection; many of the laymen were bandits and the clerics were men of bad character, who sought the office to obtain exemption from their prelates. All this resulted in so much secular business that it seemed to be the real duty of the tribunal and that nothing else was attended to—in fact there was so little to do in matters of faith that the inquisitors could well be spared from Barcelona and employ themselves in visiting their district. All this is explicable by the exorbitance of the fees charged, about which there was much complaint. There was no authorized fee-bill.

In civil cases the inquisitors charged from two and a half to ten per cent. on the amount at issue, depending on its magnitude, with a maximum of seventy-five libras; in criminal cases they received nothing but had the opportunity of inflicting fines. The officials had fees for every act, drawing and copying papers, serving notices, summoning witnesses, levying executions, etc., etc., and there was a standing quarrel between the notaries of the three departments—of the secreto, or tribunal of faith, of sequestrations and of the juzgado, or court of confiscations—as to which should have the business.[1129]